Cracks are beginning to form in President Obama’s formerly solid support among Republicans for the war in Afghanistan – with one prominent Republican senator predicting a tough road in the coming months for the war’s funding.

He predicts that both Washington’s cost-cutting mood and disappointments among the American people over the results of the nine-year-old war effort will weigh heavily as Congress considers the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq in the coming weeks.

Appearing at a Monitor-sponsored breakfast with Washington reporters, Senator Lugar said that polls showing nearly half of Americans “are prepared to cut off the Afghanistan war” would form the backdrop of debate. Both the Afghanistan war’s costs and the size of the partial drawdown of troops the president says will begin in July will be at issue.